Singapore Airlines’ Christian Stenkewitz On How The Airline Continues To Provide Its Top Of The Class Service And Hospitality
With more than 18 years working with SQ, the General Manager for Malaysia talks about the artistry and care that goes on behind the scenes.
In June, the 2025 Skytrax World Airline Awards—an annual, global benchmark determined by customer voting—once again set the bar for excellence in commercial aviation. Among the industry’s standouts, Singapore Airlines emerged emphatically, sweeping 11 categories, including World’s Best Airline Cabin Staff, World’s Best First Class, and Best Airline in Asia, while securing second place for World’s Best Airline overall. These honours, however, are merely incremental additions to a long-established legacy—one that has firmly positioned the carrier as the gold standard of air travel.
That standing is the product of both institutional rigour and the individuals steering its course. Among them is Christian Stenkewitz, whose tenure with Singapore Airlines now spans more than 18 years. Beginning as a management trainee, Stenkewitz’s ascent through the ranks has taken him across key global markets—from Munich, where he oversaw Central and Eastern Europe, to India, Dubai, and Amsterdam—before arriving in Kuala Lumpur as Singapore Airlines’ General Manager for Malaysia. Over the years, his imprint has become inseparable from the airline’s service philosophy and operational excellence, as he continues to shape the brand’s presence and performance in the market.
In your opinion, what elements must come together for a flight experience to be considered artful?
The art of flying—the art of crafting an experience—is really about achieving a degree of sensory harmony. It is about bringing multiple elements together to create an experience that delights all the senses cohesively for customers: seeing, touching, hearing, tasting, and smelling. In the Singapore Airlines customer experience, these are areas we take particular note of and strive to cater to effectively. From the moment you board our aircraft, you hear curated background music that is consistent across our flights—designed to help customers relax while reinforcing a sense of continuity.
It is about tasting and smelling as well. We curate special dishes across cabins, working with celebrity chefs to design flavours that truly cater to our customers’ palates. From our point of view, the art of travel, the art of flying, is about providing a cohesive experience that appeals to the senses.
How does Singapore Airlines provide an experience that distinguishes it from its competitors?
The most important element is to have a personal touch. You can have the most expensive food, you can have caviar, lobster, the most expensive champagne, but it won’t do anything to your experience if how it is delivered to you is not done in a way that is tailored to the customer. And that’s why we want to present a personalised travel experience, and that’s done through our cabin crew. Our cabin crew are trained to deliver that highly personalised experience, while also anticipating the wishes and the preferences of our customers. And when it all plays together, our customers get this sense of smoothness and luxury, which keeps them coming back.
SQ’s cabin crew is world-renowned for its exemplary service and hospitality. How does the airline continue to train and empower its cabin crew to deliver on every flight?
Our cabin crew is a multi-award-winning team, frequently recognised as the best in the world—something we are immensely proud of, but which also humbles us as an organisation, as it stems from the natural skills of our people. To truly excel, however, cabin crew must be exceptionally well trained. This is why Singapore Airlines has one of the most extensive cabin crew training programmes in the industry: four months, compared to the industry average of six to eight weeks.
We believe personalisation is a defining aspect of the SQ experience. You can have a fantastic onboard product, but if it is not delivered well, it is only half as enjoyable. As such, we invest heavily in service delivery and language training, as well as specialist expertise, such as wine knowledge for the on-board wine tasting experience. In the end, what we seek is consistency—so, whether on a short-haul or long-haul flight, customers experience the same high standard of service, and repeated training and delivery is how we achieve that.
With more than 20 years in the airline industry, how has your own perception of luxury travel changed over time?
It actually has changed over time because the moment you start working in the airline industry, you notice that, in order to deliver a good experience for our customers, a lot of small wheels need to be aligned to deliver that consistent and good experience. And from the outside, it might look simple—you have an aircraft, a cabin crew, and it flies from point A to point B. But there’s a lot of complexities going on in the background that need to be aligned: catering, maintenance, ground handling services, airport infrastructure, airport logistics, safety, security considerations, and so forth. All that actually plays hand-in-hand to make sure that you have a seamless experience.
So, I think that perception has definitely changed for me over time, because I know what goes into creating a product of good quality. It’s not just one person or one department in an airline that is in charge of doing that, but it’s the teamwork between our frontline colleagues, who are facing our customers, and our back-office colleagues, who are working on getting the product right. Because I know how much work goes into that process, I think a good flight becomes even more enjoyable if it is one that you don’t remember, because that means everything must have been very, very smooth, especially for a long flight. If you had a good rest on board, if you had a nice meal and personalised service, and you reach your destination well-rested, then you’re a happy customer leaving. Of course, we would like customers to remember that experience and, hopefully, they do. But if nothing negative stands out that you might remember, then that tells us that everything went smoothly.
What are your own personal practices or rituals when flying?
They’re fairly common—packing early, leaving for the airport early; these are things I do to avoid unnecessary stress. So, I often just go half an hour earlier, have a smooth experience, and have a bit of a walk to move my body before I sit on a flight for 12 hours. I think that helps a lot. I think something I look forward to, though, is actually interacting with the cabin crew. Especially for me, meeting my colleagues on board and engaging with them, asking them how they’re doing, how they experience the destination they’re travelling to, it’s something I consider a cherished ritual.
There are always good topics to talk about, because our colleagues on board are really lovely people, and they really enjoy what they’re doing. They enjoy hospitality, they love to serve, and they love to engage with their colleagues and our customers. I think that’s something that many overlook, but the whole experience of communicating with the onboard staff is something I look forward to on every Singapore Airlines flight.
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